Agenda item

Adoption Partnership Southeast is a Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) providing adoption services for Medway, Kent, and the London Borough Bexley.

The fifth RAA Annual Report attached provides information and an overview of the adoption service activity and practice development for the period April 2024 – March 2025.

The Head of Adoption Partnership South East introduced the annual report which detailed the service activity and practice development for the period April 2024 – March 2025.

The Committee learned that:

• The partnership had been successful in securing funding from the Department for Education (DfE) to assist with several projects, to help with practice and continued to deliver services that met changing needs of families, such as development of an earlier permanence scheme and ability to place siblings together.
• Focus was on promotion of growth in community engagement run by volunteer adopters across the region, which was useful for connecting families and supporting each other.
• There was focus on early permanence where possible.
• The Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) worked closely with social workers with adoption care planning and training and building of experience.
• There had been an increase in adoption for Medway children in the last year and significant rise in placement orders for children to be placed for adoption.
• Timescales between placement orders and matching with adopters continued to outperform national average.

Members raised several comments and questions which included:

The partnership was commended for their commitment to improving outcomes for young people of Medway.

Members were supportive of partnership working, which provided good value for money.

Budget – it was asked if Medway received value for money when comparing the amount of Medway’s contribution to the budget, which was approximately 23% against that of the other two authorities. Additionally, Medway received less than the 23% contributed back, as only 20% was received when there was an underspend returned. The Committee was informed that when the RAA was set up, it was agreed that Medway would pay into the partnership what its existing budgets were for the first 3 to 4 years. Last year and this year would be the first year that the agreement was enacted to base the budget on demographic demand. The percentages were kept under constant review. The return received of just under 20% was being discussed with the partnership board. The partnership continued to offer exceptionally good value for money as the Council would incur higher costs if it worked independently.

Life story - in response to the work undertaken in terms of continuation of life story work undertaken by foster carers, the Committee was informed that the valuable information gathered by foster carers continued with children when adopted. All children had a life story book created in collaboration with social workers which outlined their full journey as it was vital that children understood their birth history and were enabled to stay connected with birth families. It also enabled adopters to be able to support the young person’s culture and identity.

There was ongoing work being undertaken to support young people with their identity as it enabled them to have a good understanding when they began to question their life journey.

Support – in response to a question about availability of support for families post adoption, considering challenges experienced in the first 2 years, the Committee was informed that the RAA as well as the National Adoption Agency had been looking into the support available post adoption. It was clear that many families waited until they hit crisis point before reaching out for support which meant that specialist interventions occurred at a late stage. There were changes to the adoption approach which had been put in place this year which would be reported on next year. In order to be more accessible to families, the RAA had put in place a catch-up call service, which had been made possible through Department for Education (DfE) funding and was a scheme for parents to sign up to following their adoption order to encourage them to stay connected. A lead social worker would make annual calls to families to check up, signpost where necessary and provide any additional support.

Local support – it was commented that not all support groups and activities were local, and some families may find it hard to access services due to travel limitations. The Committee learned that the vision was for an increase in local community groups, but this remained a challenge as the partnership was spread across a large region.

Decision:

The Committee noted the report.